July 8, 2005
SHAKEN NOT STIRRED: THE MOLÉ MARTINI

Chiles and cocktails: what can I say, I love 'em both. So I thought to myself "There's gotta be a way to bring these two tasty treats together as one. If Reese's can do it with chocolate and peanut butter, there must be a way for me to bring together chiles and booze". So after wrestling for a while with this culinary challenge (usually while stuck in Chicago rush hour traffic) I came up with the concept for a molé martini.

Molé, if your not familiar with it, is a popular type of sauce in Mexican cuisine, typically prepared with chile peppers, spices, unsweetened chocolate, and a variety of other ingredients. There are a wide variety of molé sauces from various regions of Mexico. Two of the most popular regions of Mexico for molé are Puebla and Oaxaca. More on this later this year, as my fabulous better half Wendy and I are going down to Oaxaca for cooking school and the annual chile harvest in November. In the meantime, if you're interested in experimenting with molé sauces in your kitchen, I would strongly recommend Seasons of My Heart by Susan Trilling as an outstanding book for background, techniques, and recipes for cooking with molé sauces.

But I digress. Back to my recipe for the Molé Martini.

I tried several combinations of liqueurs and chiles. The liquor part was relatively easy; surprisingly it was the chile selection that proved to be a bit more challenging. Bermuda peppers flat out didn't work. Habaneros were simply too overpowering no matter how little I used. Jalapenos had the right heat but not the right flavor for this cocktail.

But two chiles came out winners for this project: the Thai Dragon chile and the firecracker pequin. My personal preference is the pequin because of its natural hint of smokiness, but unless you're growing these yourself you may not have access to them. A close second place was the Thai Dragon chile which is available is some grocery stores or any Asian market.